UK Home Secretary - New web monitoring laws will stop killers like Ian Huntley

[orangeban]

People seem to be rather confused about this monitoring legislation. Here's the thing:

1) The police won't be able to read your emails, all they can do is see what websites you go on and who you are contacting via email and things like that.

2) This isn't the dawn of a new Orwellian regime, we already have laws that allow the police to do these things, only with regards to phones. The police can find out who you've been phoning without a warrant, but they need a warrant to know what you are saying.

3) This is legislation i.e. a proposed law. It is by no means definite that it will pass.

So no, I'm not signing that petition, because this legislation is doing is bringing our current laws up to date with new technology.

Edit: Oh, and with regards to CCTV cameras, which always come up when people talk about privacy in Britain. CCTV cameras monitor you on public streets (or at least, the government ones do). Don't claim that your privacy is being invaded by them, because you don't have privacy on a public street. If you're doing something that you don't want people to know about, you shouldn't be doing it on a public street anyway.

 

[Stu35]

snip.

You know with these laws cops could take your banking and credit card numbers and info right?

You mean information already readily available to them(I work for the government, so they already have access to my bank account - its how they pay me)?

While that may be true for you it most certainly isn't true for most people which is more or less my point

Okay, I may not be a great example - the government has access to your bank account too, should they so wish it.

Thats part of how we combat terrorism - by freezing the assets of those who fund them.

 

[aba1]

snip.

You know with these laws cops could take your banking and credit card numbers and info right?

You mean information already readily available to them(I work for the government, so they already have access to my bank account - its how they pay me)?

While that may be true for you it most certainly isn't true for most people which is more or less my point

Okay, I may not be a great example - the government has access to your bank account too, should they so wish it.

Thats part of how we combat terrorism - by freezing the assets of those who fund them.

Yes but the police don't have access to all that information along with credit card numbers etc, sure they can have it shut down but they can't just simply go and take your information and do god knows what with it.

At the end of the day I don't want the government on my net the same way I don't want some guy watching me while I shower.

 

[Stu35]

snip.

You know with these laws cops could take your banking and credit card numbers and info right?

You mean information already readily available to them(I work for the government, so they already have access to my bank account - its how they pay me)?

While that may be true for you it most certainly isn't true for most people which is more or less my point

Okay, I may not be a great example - the government has access to your bank account too, should they so wish it.

Thats part of how we combat terrorism - by freezing the assets of those who fund them.

Yes but the police don't have access to all that information along with credit card numbers etc, sure they can have it shut down but they can't just simply go and take your information and do god knows what with it.

At the end of the day I don't want the government on my net the same way I don't want some guy watching me while I shower.

*shrugs* Then do something about it.

I honestly don't care, because looking at it, I don't see this bill changing my way of life. If you do care, and you are so worried that the police are going to steal your credit card info and do "god knows what" with it, then do something about it.

Write letters to your MP, get all like minded friends writing letters to your MP (even if your friends don't live in your constituency), get everybody you know who cares about privacy and go march on downing street.

Because honestly, this thing is going through without much more than a whimper of protest from what I can see in the media... I've not even been sent a link to a e-petition to sign, and I've got some friends who are really, REALLY big on sending me bloody e-petitions when it comes to human rights / freedom of speech / general government bollocks they don't agree with.

Truth is, if it came to a vote, I'd vote on your side, I like my privacy. I just don't see privacy as being the be all and end all of 'freedom'.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Boss of Derbyshire Police - Reaction to Government monitoring plan 'bizarre'.

Dick.... I think the word he was looking for was 'predictable'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reaction-to-government-monitoring-plan-bizarre-7618061.html

 

[ph0b0s123]

People seem to be rather confused about this monitoring legislation. Here's the thing:

1) The police won't be able to read your emails, all they can do is see what websites you go on and who you are contacting via email and things like that.

Nope, well aware of that. No-one gets to trawl through peoples web history without showing enough probable cause to a judge to get a warrant. Simple as. You don't see that as a problem, fine, you are in a minority....

 

[ElPatron]

just out of interest assuming your not doing anything illegal and you cant be seen while on your own property why are you bothered by being on CCTV? because i personally dont mind

Because innocent until proven guilty, because we all have the right to privacy, etc.

If I am innocent, there is no reason why I should be filmed, even if the tapes are only going to be watched if anything happens.

see this is the part of the anti-cctv thing i don't get.

Judging from some posts I have read, I think you're the exact kind of person that would not see what's wrong with CCTV even if I rubbed it in your face.

Do you know every law in existence? Probably you commit crimes every day that you didn't even know about.

Okay, it helps getting people in jail. But doesn't prevent it.

But you wouldn't feel nice about it if I disguised as you and committed a crime, only to walk around the place you live.

I am talking as someone who was mugged 10 feet away from a CCTV camera. Nobody was ever caught.

QFT.

Seriously though, I don't have a problem with these laws in their current form - I generally don't use the internet for illegal activities, and have no real issues with the government knowing about how fucked up the porn I watch is.(Really, Really fucked up).

Let me tell you a story.

Do you know how the Ruskies and Ukrainians sell child porn without being detected?

First, they are really good hackers. They steal money from credit cards to pay for servers in Germany.

Because of German privacy laws, the police can't just look inside every German server in existence.

So those crafty Slavic hackers make sure they never get their connections sniffed. They use "zombies" or "bots" (or whatever) to distribute child porn.

The problem is... if you arranged for the police to investigate the hard drives of everyone who posted in this thread... A lot of us would face jail time and become felons for the rest of your lives because of small traces of child porn.

Do you know every law in existence? Because there are thousands of them, and we probably commit crimes we don't even know about every day.

Just saying.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

People are making a huge deal over nothing. This is no different than them having a stake-out on a suspect. You really think they are gonna sift through millions of people's e-mail without reason?

 

[Stu35]

QFT.

Seriously though, I don't have a problem with these laws in their current form - I generally don't use the internet for illegal activities, and have no real issues with the government knowing about how fucked up the porn I watch is.(Really, Really fucked up).

Let me tell you a story.

Do you know how the Ruskies and Ukrainians sell child porn without being detected?

First, they are really good hackers. They steal money from credit cards to pay for servers in Germany.

Because of German privacy laws, the police can't just look inside every German server in existence.

So those crafty Slavic hackers make sure they never get their connections sniffed. They use "zombies" or "bots" (or whatever) to distribute child porn.

The problem is... if you arranged for the police to investigate the hard drives of everyone who posted in this thread... A lot of us would face jail time and become felons for the rest of your lives because of small traces of child porn.

Do you know every law in existence? Because there are thousands of them, and we probably commit crimes we don't even know about every day.

Just saying.

Uh huh... Well:

People are making a huge deal over nothing. This is no different than them having a stake-out on a suspect. You really think they are gonna sift through millions of people's e-mail without reason?

This ...

Everyone assumes the police has the will, or even the ability, to crack down on any minor or accidental crime they see. Everyone genuinely seems to see the government and the police as some sort of Nazi-esque system thats going to hunt them down for crimes they commited by accident, or really minor crimes.

They're not. They can't. Certainly not in Britain, where they barely have the resources to investigate serious violent crime, they struggle to catch ACTUAL paedophiles, so chances are they're not going to be able to catch people who once viewed a website with a server in Germany which some Russians use to distribute child pornography.

Seriously, stop overestimating the ability of our government. They're shit at everything they do - trust me, I work for those cunts.

Just saying.

 

[ElPatron]

Seriously, stop overestimating the ability of our government. They're shit at everything they do - trust me, I work for those cunts.

Just saying.

So I have to trust them because generally I can't trust them to accomplish anything.

Great. Makes me safe after all.

People are making a huge deal over nothing. This is no different than them having a stake-out on a suspect.

Exactly.

Why am I a suspect, then? I just need to turn on PeerGuardian and all I have reports of all kinds of governmental agencies start failing to ping me. Even the goddamned US Navy and the NSA, and I am in Europe!

 

[Chairman Miaow]

Seriously, stop overestimating the ability of our government. They're shit at everything they do - trust me, I work for those cunts.

Just saying.

So I have to trust them because generally I can't trust them to accomplish anything.

Great. Makes me safe after all.

People are making a huge deal over nothing. This is no different than them having a stake-out on a suspect.

Exactly.

Why am I a suspect, then? I just need to turn on PeerGuardian and all I have reports of all kinds of governmental agencies start failing to ping me. Even the goddamned US Navy and the NSA, and I am in Europe!

I was under the impression (based on the only article I had read on this, from I.) that they needed a warrant to acquire this information. If so, then no, you aren't a suspect.

 

[ElPatron]

I was under the impression (based on the only article I had read on this, from I.) that they needed a warrant to acquire this information. If so, then no, you aren't a suspect.

What information? I know perfectly that I am listed in several watchlists just from reading certain pdf files.

Why do they need a warrant for? Information on the internet is pretty loose, no need to bust in my computer to find anything more.

 

[Treblaine]

Yeah, considering the huge links between Pakistan and Britain, our law/intelligence services have done a good job of preventing Terrorist plots, the 7/7 plotters were a close nit group of friends, they didn't meet and coordinate over the internet. Further attacks of that kind have been foiled by community outreach efforts to recognise when those within a community follow certain patterns of behaviour like supporting violent action then suddenly withdrawing and avoiding community contact and dialogue.

As to the paedophile thing:


If the debate is ever "Our freedoms vs possibility of a child being molested" then regardless of statistics such as 80-90% of cases of child sexual abuse are crimes committed by close family members, people cannot argue on the other side without seeming callous. The majority is not committed by 4chan trolls who post pedobear macros. It's futile trying to track down an isolate every paedophile who looks at lolicon online, it's obviously going to have false positives for how many people on these forums even know what lolicon IS!

I've heard this on the BBC just now by a man who leads a children's charity who was himself abused as a child, it says that children NEED to be educated from the earliest possible age on this in the appropriate way, as it is they are so ignorant of what is going on they are easy to be manipulated by their tormentors into silence to spite repeated abuse. If children knew that this unwanted touching was wrong and that it should be reported rather than shamefully concealed, then Paedophiles could never abuse without certainly being caught. As it is they can easily silence their victims... especially as most are trusted members of the family.

 

[Stu35]

Seriously, stop overestimating the ability of our government. They're shit at everything they do - trust me, I work for those cunts.

Just saying.

So I have to trust them because generally I can't trust them to accomplish anything.

Great. Makes me safe after all.

Nope. I honestly don't care what you do about this bill. I think you're a coward if your only way of showing your objection to it is to whinge on an internet forum, but that's your prerogative.

 

[ElPatron]

Nope. I honestly don't care what you do about this bill. I think you're a coward if your only way of showing your objection to it is to whinge on an internet forum, but that's your prerogative.

I signed the petition. Honestly, I feel sorry for your guys because I can't do a lot more. In my eyes Europe is sinking faster than I can swim upwards and I wish that I could do something else.

But thanks for stopping by and posting a post filled with logical rebuttals to my opinions instead of sinking to name-calling.

(I think someone is a coward when they prefer to violate the privacy of 30,000 people to 300 deaths from a terrorist attack, but that's just me.

Scare tactics are supposed to work with children. Not the general populace.)

 

[Stu35]

Nope. I honestly don't care what you do about this bill. I think you're a coward if your only way of showing your objection to it is to whinge on an internet forum, but that's your prerogative.

I signed the petition. Honestly, I feel sorry for your guys because I can't do a lot more. In my eyes Europe is sinking faster than I can swim upwards and I wish that I could do something else.

But thanks for stopping by and posting a post filled with logical rebuttals to my opinions instead of sinking to name-calling.

I didn't "sink to name-calling", I gave my opinion of you (and others) if a certain set of parameters were met, I'm entitled to such opinions, and having met you with logical rebuttals before (which were promptly ignored, dodged or waved off), I figured I'd spent enough time debating a subject which, in all honesty, I don't care about. (edit - Ironically, I go on to do the opposite of buggering off from this debate below... Never mind).

Not yet anyway. Call me when they actually show a desire to try and infringe on my freedoms.

(I think someone is a coward when they prefer to violate the privacy of 30,000 people to 300 deaths from a terrorist attack, but that's just me.

Scare tactics are supposed to work with children. Not the general populace.)

Sure, except that the general populace are, in fact, children - They've shown this very well in Britain recently with the fuel 'crisis' (entirely invented by themselves - thats right, our current fuel problems have been caused solely by the stupidity of the average Briton). So scare tactics work well on them.

Incidentally, if you'd read my side of the argument properly - I don't actually support this bill, I don't believe it will increase our governments ability to track or stop terrorists, I simply 'nothing' the bill. I genuinely know enough about this government that they are not physically capable of using these brand new powers for evil... or good... or anything, other than a bit of scaremongering and to make it look like they are doing something to stop what they themselves have made people afraid of.

I feel the best way, therfore, to defeat this - Is to neither scream 'Somebody think of the children', or 'Stop violating my precious, precious privacy you all-seeing government nazis!' - but simply to accept it for what it is: A great big nothing, disguised as an attempt to combat terrorism and make it look like the government is in any way capable of stopping the people of Britain doing exactly as they damned well please.

Anyway... Now, I'm honestly out of this debate. Continue fuming about the man pressing his jackboot down on your precious privacy, or accept that if they had the capability to do what you fear, they certainly wouldn't waste it on you. Free will and all that.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

I was under the impression (based on the only article I had read on this, from I.) that they needed a warrant to acquire this information. If so, then no, you aren't a suspect.

What information? I know perfectly that I am listed in several watchlists just from reading certain pdf files.

Why do they need a warrant for? Information on the internet is pretty loose, no need to bust in my computer to find anything more.

E-mails, Skype conversations, chat logs, etc.

 

[ElPatron]

entitled

My rage meter went off the charts.

Then I realized we weren't talking about the gaming industry. Lawl.

Incidentally, if you'd read my side of the argument properly - I don't actually support this bill, I don't believe it will increase our governments ability to track or stop terrorists, I simply 'nothing' the bill.

Inaction doesn't really help, either.

I'm not calling for protests, rallies (sp?), armed insurgency or whatever. I just think that we should stop and think instead of "meh".

'Stop violating my precious, precious privacy you all-seeing government nazis!'

I don't know, I genuinely think that Nazis were nicer than any modern government.

E-mails, Skype conversations, chat logs, etc.

Yeah, that works if someone is actually planning on committing a crime AND is stupid enough to forget to encrypt everything.

I am still against it. It only sets a precedent and I would prefer not having my chats monitored because my internet activity had been previously monitored.

Because, you know... It's private. It's not like I have access to 50 kg of weapons grade uranium.

 

[ph0b0s123]

People are making a huge deal over nothing. This is no different than them having a stake-out on a suspect. You really think they are gonna sift through millions of people's e-mail without reason?

How is this like a stake out? Please explain how watching someone from a public place is the same as having warrant less access to every interaction you have on the internet. I am finding that analogy hard to grasp.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Well those same snoopers also lead to the Spanner case.

For those unfamiliar: The spanner case consisted of the police somehow laying their hands on people's private sex tape, leading to a huge crackdown, arrests and eventually the conviction in 1997 of men who were into bdsm-related homosexual sex, widely regarded as a political trial because the men didn't stick to Christian sexual morals. What other reason would there be to pursue an assault case where the victims themselves are indicted and at the same time demanding the perpretrator, their lover, be left alone?

With the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007, the UK government cited the persecution of homosexuals like in the Spanner Case as a reason why bdsm porn should become a criminal offense, like the persecution was a good thing instead of an international outrage.


I'd say more of that is on the way. As demonstrated, the bigotry to do so exists. Police and prosecutors (or is that persecuters?) shouldn't be given the tools to go after people in such a case.

OK, THAT sickens me.

Why the hell would they arrest everyone INCLUDING the "victims" of the consensual BDSM? That's just retarded. I can see them MAYBE being not totally in the wrong if they were just checking to make sure everyone is actually volunteering for this stuff, but anything more than that is just plain wrong on the state's part.

I mean, come on! If they get off on bondage and stuff, and they are doing so of their own free will, WHAT THE HELL GIVES THE STATE THE RIGHT TO STOP THEM?

What's next? They're gonna ban furries? Cross dressers? Oral sex? Sheeez.... >_<